Today Katie from the Queen of Teen Fiction featured me on her website. I posted the interview below, but make sure you check out her awesome blog and read her review of First Visions by clicking here.
1. Hi Heather! Where did you get the inspiration for First Visions?
It was actually based off an old story I wrote as a teenager. Most of my stories were crap and had melodramatic plotlines like teen pregnancy scares or were cheesy horror stories about virgin blood drinking vampires. However, the one particular story involved a psychic who helped find a missing child and I just expanded from there. I had actually forgotten completely about the story and when I started re-reading my old writings, it really struck me how great it would be to turn it into a series. I haven’t read too many books about psychics and I thought it would be fun area to explore.
2. Kate is a fabulous character! Did you relate to her at all when writing First Visions?
I tried to make Kate as real as possible. Yes, she definitely has her flaws and I hope readers see she does grow a lot over the course of the novel. We’ll continue to see her grow and mature in the next book as well. But I’m a pretty sarcastic person, so you’ll definitely hear my voice come through at times.
3. What made you choose to write for the older YA audience?
When I was in college, I had such a hard time finding books for my age group. I either had to read books about characters younger than me in high school or books about characters with “real life” problems like careers, marriage and children. I think when you’re 21, you are in this phase where you’re not a child anymore, but you may be still very reliant on your parents. I hope there will be more books that focus on this age group because it’s such an interesting time in a person’s life.
4. There’s some great humour in First Visions. Do you think it’s important to keep a certain level of humour in a story?
I love books that can be suspenseful and still make you laugh to alleviate some of the tension. I try to think about the books that I like when writing and most of my favorites have parts that have me belly laughing. I try to inject some much needed humor when things are getting too heavy.
5. First Visions is the first book in the series, how is book two coming along?
It’s going really great! I have an outline and a good chunk of the first draft done. In this book, we continue Jared and Kate’s story, but will also be introduced to another psychic. Kate has always wanted more control over her visions and this new psychic offers to help her. There will also be another missing persons case she’ll become involved in.
6. What are some of your favourite YA novels?
I have a ton, but I’ll try to narrow it down: Hunger Games trilogy, Delirium series by Lauren Oliver, The Goddess Test series by Aimee Carter, Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi and Fever by Lauren DeStefano.
7. In your opinion, what is the most rewarding part of being an author.
You’re sharing these crazy little stories that occurred in your imagination with complete strangers and hoping to touch them in some way. I love to hear people’s opinions on my work and how they react to certain elements o
Great answer to question 7! :)
ReplyDelete[...] HEATHER TOPHAM WOOD. [First Visions] was actually based off an old story I wrote as a teenager. Most of my stories were crap and had melodramatic plotlines like teen pregnancy scares or were cheesy horror stories about virgin blood drinking vampires. However, the one particular story involved a psychic who helped find a missing child and I just expanded from there. I had actually forgotten completely about the story and when I started re-reading my old writings, it really struck me how great it would be to turn it into a series. I haven’t read too many books about psychics and I thought it would be fun area to explore. [...]
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